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Opinion

Bipartisan bill ensures higher ed funding

By Mark Ferrandino and Chris Holbert Guest Commentary

Posted:
04/10/2014 05:36:20 PM MDT

Updated:
04/11/2014 01:10:00 PM MDT

"To meet that goal and fill Colorado jobs with qualified Coloradans, the state must make education available to many students who now cannot afford to go to college," write Mark Ferrandino and Chris Holbert. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

Few aspects are as important to Colorado's economy as the development of well-trained, workforce-ready college graduates to meet the growing demands of our state's key industries.

Our responsibility to the people of Colorado is to ensure that our state colleges and universities provide the greatest number of Colorado students with an education that's relevant for their careers and for our economy.

If Colorado was flush with money, this obligation would be easy to meet. But higher education funding is tight, even this year when we can finally afford to send more dollars to our public colleges and universities after many years of declining support.

In October 2012, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education adopted a Master Plan for Higher Education that recognizes the state's changing demographics and the need for "reducing the attainment gaps among students from underserved communities." The plan set a goal for 63 percent of the adult population to have college degrees by 2020. To meet that goal and fill Colorado jobs with qualified Coloradans, the state must make education available to many students who now cannot afford to go to college.

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We have spent a great deal of time considering how to get the most bang for the buck with taxpayers' investment in higher education. We concluded that we need to align dollars to outcomes and direct our state funds to students and colleges through a formula that brings transparency to the funding decision, prioritizes students and the families who scrimp and save to send them to college, and rewards higher education institutions for retaining students through graduation.

To meet these legislative priorities, we are the House sponsors of a bill to create a funding mechanism that is rational and transparent, and no longer centers on requests from institutions for allocations based on what they have received in the past.

House Bill 1319, Outcomes-Based Funding for Higher Education, ensures that a majority of the state's total higher education appropriation goes to students. This is achieved by guaranteeing that 52.5 percent of the total higher education operating budget is allocated to College Opportunity Fund (COF) stipends.

In recent years, the per-student COF investment has been practically an afterthought, a figure reached after other funding parameters have been set. We're proposing that the investment in the student comes first, and that an incrementally higher (at least 10 percent) COF will be awarded to lower-income students, defined as those who are eligible for federal Pell Grants.

Our bill, to be phased in beginning with fiscal year 2015-16, recognizes that all of the state's colleges and universities have fixed costs and it will supply funding to help cover them. HB 1319 retains the state's commitment to serving remote areas of the state and supporting smaller schools that have low enrollments. It also preserves funding for specialized educational services such as the schools of medicine and veterinary medicine. It provides incentives to colleges and universities based on students completing degrees or certificate programs. And it provides funding to support access to graduate programs.

The bill, which has bipartisan sponsors in both legislative chambers, sets priorities, not funding totals. It proposes no net increase or decrease in higher education funding. It is not in conflict with Senate Bill 1, a $100 million increase in higher education funding being considered by the General Assembly.

Yet the passage of HB 1319 will be a significant achievement for future years — a transparent funding model that recognizes key factors and begins to tie funding to outcomes. It's a debate that has long been necessary, and it's essential that we tackle it now.

Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, is Colorado speaker of the House. Rep. Chris Holbert is a Republican from Parker.

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